Purist Vuelta

Just thought I'd start a topic for discussing the options for purists ahead of the year's final grand tour.

Going by the Giro the top scorers were J-Rod and Hesjedal by a mile who went after the Maglia Rosa early and kept up the fight till the very end, the likes of De Gendt only got going towards the end and didn't score nearly as heavily. Other than Cavendish it wasn't worth having any sprinter as they were all outscored by the likes of Uran and Henao with solid, but unspectacular, totals. Pozzovivo came out on top in the DS stakes through sticking with the GC guys for most of the race although Tiralongo was worth a pick early on.

For the Tour the sprinter's scored more heavily and Sagan in particular was a must have with 550 points. Gripel and Goss also scored well but the real stars were Froome and Wiggins who's time trial heroics got them a tidy haul of points backed up by solid mountain finishes to see them finish on 367 and 475 respectively, well ahead of Evans, Nibali and TJvG who all came out with roughly 300 points a piece. Voeckler also scored in the same region and Pinot was by far and away the highest scoring DS.

Plans for the Vuelta? Stick to the climbers, there are less flat stages for sprinters and more summit finishes for the big climbers. I think like the Giro a couple of contenders will go for the lead early, Rodriguez and Cobo maybe, and look to hold off Contador and Froome. Contador is an enigma as he may be anonymous over the first week or two and look to ride into some form, that might work for the win but won't bag lots of fantasy points.

So, who do you think are the must have's? Who's going to get points on the board early and try to keep it up and who's going to coast under the radar before making a late, De Gendt-esque, charge for the line?

Also, will you be picking Uran/Henao for your team given that Froome is clearly the favoured rider or is Henao worth a punt as a cheap rider with the potential to keep up with the lead group?

Same with Froome--he's in great form now, but two weeks from now will he still hold up?

Contador's form is a big unknown, but he also has a tremendous poker face... remember the 2011 Giro? He absolutely DESTROYED everyone, even though he didn't look good in the first few days. Will he start "dancing" away with this tour after the first few high mountain stages?

Mathematically speaking, if you go for all three, and throw in Viviani (cheapest star rider) to round out your 4 star riders, you are left with only 24.5 points for your 5 domestiques. And the list of riders under 5 points or so doesn't offer too many hidden gems. It seems like a lot of the good bang-for-your-buck DSes are going to be in the 7-10 point range, eh?

Cobo was anonymous at the Tour but he was working as a domestique for Valverde so he was never going to compete. Last year's win came out of nowhere but then again so did Froome's 2nd place, but Froome has backed that up this year while Cobo seems to have gone backwards.

That being said, maybe he just prefers riding the Vuelta and with a decent Movistar team there to support him there's no reason he won't be there or thereabouts.

I'm going Purist for the very first time, due to my being away for most of the time. It's proving much more torturous than I thought. For some reason I cannot seem to squeeze in Mollema. Quite fancy his chances: he's explosive on the eagle nest sort of finishes, he's learned to TT fairly well and should be rested after crashing out of the Tour. Plus his performance in San Sebastian was very encouraging.

So, should I gazump the white Kenyan or Bertie? All logic dictates that Froome should run out of steam by the end of the Vuelta, but SKY has found ways to refute logic this year by "marginal gains". As for Bertie, I expect him to fly actually. He is one of those riders who delivers when it is expected the most...and he's fuelled by that powerful combustion called revenge.

No money left for J-Rod, so I'm hoping Daniel Moreno with outshine his master.

As for DS: Talentski and Quintana are must-haves, plus two fast guys and a small team rider who used to be good. The Vuelta is his time to get his career out of the slums, or so I keep telling him.

So at least 3rd,4th,5th,13th,20th and 27th today although I missed out on Purito and Froome.
Thought Anton could make the difference for me, but really disappointing so far.
Nonetheless decent output, but as the defending champion I still expect a lot for the coming stages.

1st,3rd,7th,11th,15,19th and 20th today.
Anton was decent but still could be better.
Capecchi and Morabito slightly worse than I expected.
C.Meyer with a good breakaway attempt.
Valverde and Contador sharp as always.

Meersman and Marczynski are both doing well for me, not picking Valverde might come back to bite me in the arse but I'm hoping all of Rodriguez/Contador/Froome outscore him by the end. Same applies to Degenkolb, if he continues like this I can see him doing a Sagan and getting a massive haul of points compararable to the top GC guys.

Overall Purist league is if you've played purist all year, if you used a team that had previously made transfers during races then you wouldn't be eligible for the overall purist comp.

And yes, it's hurts...

I'm pleased with coming second, or I would have been, but when I thought I'd won I was dead chuffed so I'm a bit gutted. But well played to statour (or whoever you are as it seems to be a second purist account set up for the TdF), it was a great fight right to the line.